Joshua D. Brandstadter, MD, PhD, a fourth-year fellow in Hematology-Oncology, has received the Doris Duke Physician-Scientist Fellowship Award. The $220,000 prize is granted to physician scientists at the subspecialty fellowship level who are seeking to conduct additional years of research with the goal to aid in the transition into a research faculty appointment. This award will support Brandstadter's innovative work in Castleman Disease, a rare, inflammatory condition that causes large lymph nodes and potentially fatal inflammation throughout the body.
Timothy Brown, MD, an innovation fellow at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I) and chief fellow in Hematology-Oncology, has been named a recipient of the Conquer Cancer 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Merit Award, given to trainees who are first authors on abstracts selected for presentation at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.
Jennifer R. Eads, MD, an associate professor of Clinical Medicine and physician lead for GI Clinical Research, has received the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group Young Investigator of the Year Award. This award, funded by the ECOG Research and Education Foundation, recognizes extraordinary scientific achievements and research leadership contributions made by investigators during the early years of their careers (under the age of 46). Eads is also director of the Neuroendocrine Tumor Program.
Alexander C. Huang, MD, an assistant professor of Hematology-Oncology, has received the 2022 Melanoma Research Foundation Breakthrough Consortium (MRFBC) Young Investigator Research Team Award, a two-year award with a total prize of $300,000, funded by a grant from Bristol Myers Squibb, to advance the field of translational immuno-oncology. The goal of this award is to help identify and support the next generation of melanoma scientists, to focus on either improving clinical outcomes for patients with melanoma being treated with immuno‐oncology agents, or advancing the scientific understanding of immuno‐oncology and the role of the immune system in melanoma.
Steven Kawut, MD, a professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and director of the Pulmonary Hypertension (PH)/Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program, has received the Outstanding Physician Award from the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) at the PHA 2022 International PH Conference and Scientific Sessions. The award recognizes Kawut as a leader in promoting excellent clinical care, research, education, and advocacy on behalf of PH patients. Kawut has published more than 300 papers and is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health to perform clinical trials and studies of physical activity in people with pulmonary hypertension.
Bonnie Ky, MD, an associate professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Epidemiology and director of the Penn Cardio-Oncology Translational Center of Excellence, has been recognized by Cancer Health magazine as one of The Cancer Health 25, an annual list that honors individuals who have made a difference in the lives of people with cancer. Ky has been a leading force in the development of cardio-oncology, which focuses on the detection, monitoring, and treatment of cardiovascular disease prior to, during, and after cancer treatment.
Anne Marie McCarthy, PhD, an assistant professor of Epidemiology, has been awarded $50,000 from the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition to support her research in cancer epidemiology with an emphasis on reducing breast cancer disparities by developing precision screening strategies. McCarthy's work leverages a growing understanding of breast cancer biology and risk by focusing on a key clinical concern - identifying women who are at high risk of having a cancer that is aggressive and likely to be missed by mammography screening who may benefit from supplemental screening.
Sarah Skuli, MD, PhD, a third-year fellow in Hematology-Oncology, has been selected by the American Society of Hematology (ASH), as one of 16 outstanding fellows to receive the 2022 ASH Research Training Award for Fellows (RTAF), a year-long program to encourage careers in academic hematology by providing protected research time during training. Each RTAF awardee will receive $70,000 to support a hematology research project throughout the program's duration. Skuli's area of interest is the highly aggressive and rapidly fatal subtype of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that harbors inactivating mutations in a key suppressor of leukemic cell growth, TP53. She's working to understand the role that cellular metabolism and cholesterol synthesis play in allowing this AML subtype to resist current chemotherapeutics in order to identify novel therapies to treat patients suffering from this blood cancer.
Hongjun Song, PhD, a professor of Neuroscience, and Brian Litt, MD, a professor of Neurology and Bioengineering and director of the Penn Epilepsy Center, have received the 2022 Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The award honors Song and Litt for their dedication to superior mentorship and training in neuroscience research. They will each receive $100,000 in the form of a supplement to an existing NINDS grant to support their efforts to foster the career advancement of additional trainees.
